Our checklist is designed to help businesses implement a structured and effective onboarding program. By ensuring clear and consistent communication, this guide helps your new employees feel at home quickly, understand their responsibilities, and build strong relationships with their colleagues. With practical tips and detailed steps, our checklist enables your company to make a positive first impression and increase the engagement and productivity of your new hires.

In this checklist, we offer:

• Pre-Boarding Step
• First Day Steps
• First Week Steps
• First Month Steps
• Three to Six Months Steps

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A new job is always exciting, both for employee and employer. Everyone involved is probably bristling with enthusiasm about the new working relationship. Yet within six months, one in three new employees is already looking for a new job. This is mainly due to a bad first experience with the new employer. To avoid that from happening at your organization, here are 5 ways in which an employee communication platform like Netpresenter can improve your onboarding.

• Give new employees a warm welcome
• Schedule all your posts and updates in advance 
• Keep new employees informed right from the start
• Gather feedback continuously
• Encourage social interaction

Give new employees a warm welcome

An employee communication platform is very useful if you want to give your new colleague a warm welcome on their first day. By welcoming the new employee on digital signage screens throughout the building, the latest addition to the team will feel appreciated right from the start. Just imagine them seeing a big picture of themselves accompanied by a friendly welcome message on big screens everywhere in the office!

Our client Richemont does precisely that. “When we have new hires we put a welcome message on the TV screens,” Laura Laustriat, Brand Ambassador and eCommerce at Richemont, explains. These messages also serve as a quick and easy introduction to newcomers. “Before posting the welcome messages, I conduct a small interview with the starters so they can tell me a bit more about themselves and their backgrounds. These little bios are then displayed on all screens in our office. This allows everyone to get to know newcomers a bit better, without them having to repeat the same thing over and over again,” says Laustriat.

Even if some employees are working at home or at other locations, you can organize a warm welcome this way. Netpresenter enables you to reach dispersed workforces using Teams, the employee app, and numerous other tools. No one will ever have to wonder who ‘the new one’ is.

Schedule all your posts and updates in advance 

A solid onboarding program can take days or even weeks. It usually starts with providing the physical and technological means they need to get started, such as a desk, chair, laptop, phone, etc. When that’s taken care of, your onboarding is far from finished. You’re just getting started. The new employee will have to get acquainted with colleagues, receive access to specific systems and programs, and get the right training. In short, there’s plenty to do for the new employee, but also for the HR department that must manage the onboarding program step by step. 

The Netpresenter scheduling feature will help you do that in a convenient way. It enables you to prepare messages in advance for the entire process. You can target these messages specifically to just your new colleague, so you won’t be bothering anyone else. Prepare a personal welcome message for the first day, send information ahead of an internal training course a few days later, and invite them for a short meet-and-greet with the CEO after a week. 

The HR department can set up all those messages even before the new colleague starts their first day at work. As soon as the new hire starts, the HR department will have nothing to worry about as the messages are sent out automatically at the right time. If you have multiple employees starting around the same time, you’ll save yourself even more time. You can set different recipients for every message, so you’ll decide whether your message is meant for just one employee or for every new hire.

Keep new employees informed right from the start

You’ll want to make sure your new colleague feels at home. That’s why it is crucial that they are never left out of any activities. There’s always a chance people forget to inform their new colleague about any internal developments or to invite them for a meeting or a drink after work. Thanks to our Office 365 integration, you don’t have to worry about your new colleague missing out on important company news and other employee communications.

Netpresenter can synchronizes with the user groups in Office 365. As long as the IT department manages the account properly, the new employee will automatically get to see all the company news that is relevant to them. You don’t even need to create an account in Netpresenter: Employees can use their Windows login for the Netpresenter desktop and mobile apps thanks to Single Sign-On.

Gather feedback continuously

Onboarding is more than just providing someone with all the tools and knowledge to get started. It’s also essential to make sure that the new colleague feels comfortable. Pulse Surveys will help to keep continuous track of your new hire’s wellbeing and happiness. Do they feel welcome? Do they have everything they need to do their job? 

Netpresenter allows you to automatically repeat Pulse Surveys at regular intervals, targeted at only specific individuals, so you can ask the employees who recently joined your organization about how they feel and what they think of your organization. The answers will help you identify problems early, enabling managers or supervisors to solve them right away. Pulse surveys are an excellent tool to make sure employees won’t leave your organization within six months.

Encourage social interaction

Pulse Surveys are great to track your employee’s wellbeing, but you can further improve the relationship between the new hire and the organization by encouraging social interaction. That’s why it is essential to allow new hires to do so with both their direct colleagues and those outside their team.

Our applications for smartphones and PCs allow employees to respond directly to corporate messages. We can even integrate with Teams and automatically publish content from specific Teams channels on your digital signage screens. It’ll give new employees a better picture of what’s going on with everyone and what everyone is working on, even if those colleagues are working in a completely different department or at home.

Do you think your onboarding could use some technological support from Netpresenter? Schedule a demo or a meeting; we are happy to show you the possibilities! Or download the free infographic about embracing the remote workstyle and flexibility in your organization.

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51. That’s the percentage of currently employed adults in the United States that, according to Gallup’s State of the American Workplace Report, are searching for a new job. 17 is the percentage of employees a company loses within the employee’s first 90 days due to ineffective onboarding. And 90 to 200 is the percentage of an employee’s annual salary it will cost a company to find and onboard a replacing candidate. A lot of employers still believe their new hire will be loyal to their company once both sides have signed the contract. However, numbers prove they’re wrong. Effective onboarding is important: it increases the chance your new hire stays with your organization. But effective onboarding can be difficult. These are our tips that will help you keep your onboarding on track.

1. Make them feel welcome

This may sound like a no-brainer, but bear with us here. A BambooHR study states 17 percent of employees that left within the first six months of their job, said a warm welcome and a ‘friendly smile or helpful coworker would have made all the difference’. The worst thing for a new hire is to arrive on their first day and their workplace isn’t set up, the receptionist isn’t expecting them, or coworkers don’t know that today’s the day their new colleague starts their job.

Make your new employee feel like you’re excited to have them on the team and make them feel welcome. Appoint an onboarding buddy whose role it is to work with them for the first couple of days and continue to be connected afterwards. Ensure the employee’s workstation is complete and ready for them upon arrival on their first day. If you have digital signage screens or a corporate lock screen, publish a message that welcomes your new colleague: they’ll see they’re welcomed throughout the complete building, which creates a sense of belonging. In other words: show them you care.

2. Involve their team and their manager

According to Gallup’s Report, employees are 3.4 times as likely to label their onboarding process as successful when their manager takes an active role in it. 96 percent of new employees said their good onboarding experience was partly due to one-on-one time with their direct manager. Involving team members is also crucial; it helps outline the new employee’s role within the team.

Schedule time with the new employee’s manager to have relevant conversations in which both sides’ expectations are clarified and the definition of success in the organization is specified. Involve the team for both sides’ sake: when getting started at their job, having a buddy at work was very important to 56 percent of respondents in the BambooHR study. Team members are great teachers for new hires, and they can partly show their new colleague how things are done and inform them on company routines and culture.

Team members should also be included in the onboarding process to help clarify the position the new hire will take. Now there’s fresh blood in the team, it may be beneficial to spend some time redefining responsibilities for the entire team. The new team member, as well as existing team members, should clearly know how projects will run and how to interact with each other. This may also help to prevent existing team members from feeling threatened by their new coworker, as they may be transferring some of their tasks to him or her.

3. Make them introduce themselves

New employees want to know whether your organization is the right workplace for them. They will try to form a bond with their coworkers, and will want to feel accepted. However, for your new hire, trying to fit in can be scary! Help them out by introducing them to the entire company, not just their team members.

Make new hires introduce themselves through a message published on your digital signage, including hobbies or things they’re passionate about. This way, it’s easier for new hires and other employees to get to know each other. Other employees can read about their new coworker on your corporate app or a digital signage screen. As it turns out, opposites don’t attract. So, when your employees see they have similar interests to their new coworker, it’s easier for them to start conversations. In doing so, they can form a positive bond. Added benefit: positive bonds between coworkers increase employee productivity.

4. Train for triumph (but don’t overload)

Training new employees is clear as day, right? Obviously, someone needs to learn the ropes to be able to perform at their best (or to be able to perform, period). However, new hires have to process a LOT of information and training on their first couple of days. And according to Hermann Ebbinghaus’ forgetting curve, we forget information over time if we don’t try to retain it.

Although Ebbinghaus states the rate at which a person forgets depends on several factors such as memory strength and how meaningful the information is, we will still lose some of it. This means, your new hires will be likely to forget a thing or two they’ve learned when they first start their job. That’s why training your new hires should never be just a ‘one and done’ event.

To fight the forgetting curve, make sure you repeatedly show new hires’ training on their corporate screensavers. This won’t just help them to better memorize, it will also scale down the enormous amount of information coming at them. After all, you’re only presenting small chunks of their training at a time.

You can target only them by creating a ‘training’ channel in your message server, although it’s not a bad idea to train existing employees from time to time on things they ought to know (they can also fall victim to the forgetting curve!). Cybersecurity awareness training, for example, is something that can be repeated for all your employees as it is of such high importance. Compliance training for all employees could never hurt, either. Better safe than sorry!

5. Celebrate success

For a new employee, onboarding revolves around a series of firsts. Their first work projects and tasks, the first time they can share their talents with the organization, the first time they’re recognized for their talents and the first time their success is celebrated. Celebrating (first) success isn’t just fun, it can also increase employee engagement. It helps employees feel recognized for their work, which leads to higher levels of productivity and customer satisfaction. On top of that, doing well at their new job and being acknowledged for it, will make your new employee feel like the company’s a perfect fit. And in turn, that will make them want to stay.

The way success is celebrated depends on the company and on how big or small the success is. Big success may call for bigger celebrations. Small successes can be easily celebrated by simply acknowledging them. Let your employee know they did well and you’re happy they’re with you. For example, publish a slide on your digital signage to tell other employees what it was their coworker did well. This gives people a chance to congratulate their colleague. This way, your new team member will feel proud, which will give them renewed energy to also do well on their next tasks. Result: a happy employee, who knows what success looks like and will put in energy to repeat their victory.

Include these tips in your onboarding program, and your onboarding train is well on its way to retention station. Exactly where you want it to be heading! Interested in how we can help you successfully onboard your new colleagues? Feel free to contact us! Or download the free infographic about embracing the remote workstyle and flexibility in your organization.

The post All Aboard the Onboarding Train! Five Tips on Effective Onboarding appeared first on netpresenter.com.

As the coronavirus crisis develops, things aren’t back to normal. However, we’re slowly going back to work or at least starting to prepare for that moment. When that moment arrives, employers will probably have to remodel offices to make sure all employees can practice social distancing and keep each other safe. As an internal communications professional, what can you do to make sure your colleagues’ reboarding goes right? A employee app can help! 

Over the past few months, many of us have hardly had the opportunity to work together physically. Therefore, we’ve collectedly started using Teams and Zoom to stay connected. A trend that millennials and Gen Z are happy about, but that other generations seem to have (inevitably) started embracing, too. And a trend that’s here to stay, even when more employees return to their dedicated workspaces.  

A smooth return to work 

After eight weeks of working remotely, there are many uncertainties and questions employees may have when they finally return to their work location. So many changes … for employees, it may feel as though it’s their first day at work again. For their first day, you’d usually set up an onboarding program to get your new colleagues started. And for your colleagues’ return to work, you can do the same: set up a great reboarding program, in which you guide them through the resumption of their work after a prolonged absence from their dedicated workspace. We’ve listed six ways you can use a digital solution, a employee app, to make the best of your colleagues’ reboarding: 

1. Prepare employees 

Applying social distancing may be easy at home, but it becomes a lot more complicated at work. Employers will have to introduce all kinds of new safety measures to be able to comply with new government advice and rules. However, an employer who fails to communicate these new rules and measures on time unnecessarily puts their employees’ health and safety at risk. Employees must be prepared for these changes before they return to work. This way, they can focus on the information at a moment of their choice, so they can read it thoroughly, allowing them to act accordingly when they return to the office. 

 You can inform your employees about your new rules and policy via a employee app. The app enables you to reach your workforce wherever they are, even employees without a company pc or email address. Moreover, the information is available anywhere and at any time. Your employees can consult the app 24/7, so they can always view and read the information at their own pace. This way, your employees will return to the office fully informed about and aware of the new rules. 

2. Communicate transparently

A study by Edelman shows people identify ‘my employer’ as the most credible source of information. Sixty-three percent of respondents said that they would believe information from that channel after one or two exposures, versus 58 percent for government websites and 51 percent for traditional media. In short: we want reliable updates, preferably from our own employer. 

A employee app allows management to give direct updates, keep control of communications, stay ahead of rumors, and address non-desk employees and remote workers. Your CEO can regularly post short updates (it’s easy and takes very little time, we know they’re busy!). To make updates a little more personal, publishing videos is a possibility, too. Upload a video to your SharePoint and distribute it via the app. Employees can immediately give their feedback on updates: through likes and comments, they can ask questions or respond to colleagues. And they don’t have to interrupt their work to do so; they can check the updates at their convenience.

3. Push messages

All kinds of measures will undoubtedly require additional changes in the coming months. As an employer, you have to make sure all vital information regarding these changes is up to date and easy to find. If you want to keep your employees safe and healthy, that is of the utmost importance. Ideally, you would bring important information straight to your staff, without them having to raise so much as a finger. 

With push messages, this becomes a reality. Have you got essential information that your employees should read right now, wherever they are? Skip email: before you have drafted and sent your email and it’s read by all your employees, your message may well be outdated. Instead, send a push message via your employee app. Your employees will receive a message on their phones that cannot be overlooked. And they don’t have to search for the news, because you brought the information directly to them. A great way to make sure everyone is armed with the essential information they need to keep themselves and their colleagues safe.

4. Target information

Different departments and work locations require various measures regarding the safety and health of your employees. For workers in factories or production sites, the measures that should be adhered to in your organization’s offices aren’t interesting. And vice versa, that information will only create confusion or distractions. 

With your employee app, you can make sure that your employees only see the information that is of relevance to them. Create audience groups and target the information intended for each audience group. That will make informing your employees more efficient, and fewer questions and distractions will arise. Everyone can safely get to work, without irrelevant information continually distracting them from their work.

5. Update fast and efficient

Your employees have returned to work. However, their reboarding isn’t complete yet. In the coming months, there are still a lot of uncertainties. A lot of things can change, even within your organization. To make sure everyone can keep doing their job, it’s important to quickly and efficiently bring this new information to the attention of your employees. 

A employee app allows you to publish these new measures in the blink of an eye, so you can keep your employees fully informed and up to date – even when they have been back at work for a while. And with the ability to manage statistics, you can keep track of how many people read your message, clicked on links, or liked a message. You can see whether or not the information has actually reached your employees – and if the statistics show that it hasn’t, you can easily send a push message.

6. Distribute FAQs

New measures and protocols can also raise an enormous amount of questions. Be a reliable source where employees can find relevant information, like all the answers to their questions. Collect all questions and answers and put together an FAQ. That’s convenient for you, too: you won’t be answering the same questions over and over, as your employees can find the answers to frequently asked questions all in one place. But how will your employees find that FAQ among the overload of information that’s already in your organization? 

Distribute your FAQ easily among your employees. Publish it directly to your app. Or publish it to your SharePoint, and connect your SharePoint to your employee app. Your app will automatically show your SharePoint articles and documents. Connecting your SharePoint with your app means you only have to do the work once. You publish the information on your SharePoint for all to find, and your employee app will automatically synchronize with your SharePoint and will show your FAQ. That way, your colleagues can easily view the answers to their questions, from anywhere and at any time. Without having to search for the information! 

For now, the advice to work from home as much as possible still stands. But that makes this period the time to prepare your organization for the reboarding of your employees. Do you need help reboarding your colleagues? Download our checklist ‘Back to (the new) normal’ to help get your colleagues started quickly and safely upon their returning. Or contact us, we’re happy to help!

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As the coronavirus crisis continues, organizations are trying to continue operations as much as they can. However, daily affairs now require a special approach. For example: onboarding and training new colleagues. After all, you have to keep your distance, even during the onboarding program. However, ineffective onboarding can cost your company between 90 and 200 percent of an annual salary. So, despite the current circumstances, it’s still very important to take good care of the onboarding of new employees. According to Netpresenters Head of Operations, Linda van Oppen, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel during the coronavirus crisis. One thing is vital during proper onboarding nowadays: copious amounts of attention.

Linda van Oppen faced the onboarding challenge herself, when a new colleague joined Netpresenter early April. Van Oppen typically runs an extensive program with new employees. This program isn’t only intended to get someone started as soon as possible (the ‘cold’ side of onboarding), but also to ensure that someone feels welcome, gets to know all of their colleagues, and embraces the company culture (the ‘warm’ side of onboarding). ‘However, it’s difficult to feel welcome in an empty office. Meanwhile, new colleagues are probably extra insecure about their unconventional start. A warm welcome has never been more important’.

Buddy

Assigning a ‘buddy’ to a new employee is an essential part of this warm welcome. He or she offers a helping hand during the onboarding process. In this case, she took on the role of buddy herself. ‘The buddy system is now extra important,’ Van Oppen explains. For example, with no physical distancing, walking to lunch or a meeting together is a natural thing to do with new employees. As this isn’t a possibility at the moment, properly introducing someone might take some extra work under the current circumstances. ‘You have to make a little more effort for a warm welcome, and it’s probably going to be digital.’

Transparent communication

Van Oppen also stresses the importance of communicating as clearly and transparently as possible. She had to do this herself when the start date of the new colleague was initially postponed by two weeks due to the uncertainty surrounding the coronavirus. ‘We called twice a week at that time. Normally, an e-mail prior to the start date is sufficient, but when things go less smoothly, it’s better to make a phone call,’ says Van Oppen. ‘Be honest. If you’re uncertain about something, just say so. These are uncertain times for everyone. Employers have never experienced this before, either. They don’t always know how to deal with this situation. It would be best if you made clear agreements,’ she adds. But even after the starting date, clear communication remains crucial. ‘For me, it’s important to be able to judge someone on how they function and fit within the organization during the first month. That is only possible if a person knows what is expected of them. Express those expectations clearly.’

Supporting software

Software plays an important role, supporting the onboarding process. At Netpresenter we currently use Microsoft Teams for daily communication. Colleagues communicate with each other via Teams, but there’s also plenty of interdisciplinary communication: a weekly meeting with the entire company ensures that everyone is aware of each other’s daily activities. Thanks to this weekly meeting, new employees quickly find out who their colleagues are and what they are working on.

In addition, we publish internal news on our own software. We also introduce new colleagues via our corporate channel. In normal times, this introduction is visible throughout the entire office on all narrowcasting screens. Now our office is almost empty. Fortunately, the message is also visible in the company app, where colleagues from all departments can leave a welcome message immediately. This feature was especially popular, now that we can’t get acquainted face to face easily. Although our newest addition has yet to meet most of his colleagues in real life, he already knows what’s going on in the company. He also got a pretty clear view of our company culture.

Despite some adjustments to the execution of the onboarding program, and extra use of digital tools, our own Linda van Oppen didn’t need to change course completely. All the usual steps were taken, albeit with even more attention for our new colleague. ‘A new job is always exciting, so put yourself in the shoes of the other person.’ Although onboarding has become a bit of a challenge nowadays, the circumstances also offer an opportunity to reflect on your current onboarding program, Van Oppen thinks. ‘If your onboarding is already in order, just go the extra mile and hold on to it. If you don’t have a solid onboarding program yet, now is the time to create one!’

Could you use some tips to improve your onboarding program? Check our five tips for effective onboarding.

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